Westeros

We previously noted the “All-Century Poll” that Locus Magazine put together, which aimed to list the best SF/F of the 20th and 21st centuries respectively according to voters. In the novel categories, George R.R. Martin did quite well, with A Game of Thrones being voted the #2 fantasy novel of the 20th century (behind The Lords of the Rings, of course).

Now Locus has gone on to publish full results in the short fiction categories, and you’ll spot a few George R.R. Martin works along the way. Most notably, Martin’s famous science fiction/horror novellete, “Sandkings”, ends up at #5 on the 20th Century Novelette list. Just missing the top 10 on the Novella list, on the other hand, is Martin’s award-winning story “A Song for Lya”, at #12 in the 20th Century Novella list. A number of Martin’s other works appear in the extended list, and many of these can be found in the massive story collection Dreamsongs (Order: Volume 1, Volume 2, Kindle Bundle) which we always highly recommend to those who are fans of Martin’s writing. The second volume also contains “The Hedge Knight”, the first of the Dunk & Egg novellas set within the Seven Kingdoms about 90 years prior to the events of the novels—it’s well worth reading in its own right.

Last year, Game of Thrones was reported to be the #2 most pirated television show according to TorrentFreak.

And now this year? It has the ambiguous honor of now being the #1 most pirated show according to the same site, which claims its overall pirated viewership has gone from 3.4 million downloads to 4.28 million downloads. The New York Times’s Dave Itzkoff points out that, according to TorrentFreak, some 80% of all the piracy they’re tracking is outside of the US—basically in those regions where the show is unavailable or not available roughly concurrently with US air dates.

Awhile back, Locus Magazine—the venerable, award-winning SF/F publishing industries trade magazine —launched an “All-Centuries” poll regarding the best genre novels and writers of the 20th and 21st centuries. The results are in, and they’re looking pretty good for the work of one George R.R. Martin:

• 20th Century Fantasy Novel - A Game of Thrones is number 2, behind J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings and just after Tolkien’s The Hobbit, Ursula K. Le Guin’s A Wizard of Earthsea, and Roger Zelazny’s Nine Princes of Amber. Good company to be in. A Clash of Kings and A Storm of Swords also appear on the list, at 30 and 12 respectively.
• 21st Century Fantasy Novel - A Feast for Crows lands at the number 5 position, with Neil Gaiman’s American Gods and Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell at the top two positions—and, quite interestingly, both are also looking to be adapted to the television as A Song of Ice and Fire has been (with American Gods being developed at HBO and a Jonathan Strange BBC mini-series in the works). Patrick Rothfuss’s The Name of the Wind and China Meville’s The Scar were number 3 and 4 respectively.

Martin himself has remarked on the poll, adding his personal take on the 20th Century SF Novel list, which would have had Zelazny’s Lord of Light, Bester’s The Stars My Destination, and Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness in the top 3. Fantastic novels, all, well worth reading if you haven’t yet had the pleasure.

The annual holiday sale on the Steam gaming service is up and running, and it turns out that there’s a 75% off deal on the Game of Thrones Bundle, which contains both the Game of Thrones: The Roleplaying Game featuring characters voiced by several actors from the show, and the strategy game Game of Thrones: Genesis. The games were not well reviewed, but they have their adherents, with their unique mechanics and (in particular) the RPG’s very good story despite technical problems. In fact, Cyanide and the publishers continue to support it, recently releasing a DLC quest that expands the backstory of one of the key characters.

The Making Game of Thrones production blog posted a new video (the first in a promised series leading up to the season 3 premiere) a couple of days ago, focused on art direction. Some glimpses of actors both familiar and new, and new locations, from the third season. Check it out below:

A very interesting report has come by way of EW’s James Hibberd, revealing that while season 3 is still just 10 episodes—compared to the 12 episodes the other big HBO drama, Boardwalk Empire, gets—these episodes will often run 4-5 minutes longer than they did in the previous season, squeezing in just a bit more content per episode. If the season averages out to 57 minutes an episode, that would practically be equivalent to an 11 episode season at season 2’s run time.

And on top of that, it looks like the season finale is going to run 60 minutes, or perhaps even just beyond that, something that the executive producers Benioff and Weiss note requires special permission from HBO due to scheduling.

Here’s the relevant quotes:

Well, this is pretty interesting—though not entirely unexpected. HBO has just sent out a press release revealing one of the newest Game of Thrones products, one which I suspect may not be sold at the HBO Shop because… well, it’s alcohol. In a move that completely trumps the True Blood True Blood drink, HBO’s gone one better and is actually producing an ale—in partnership with award-winning brewer Brewery Ommegang—that will be available (in the States—no word on international distribution) when the third season premieres on March 31st, 2013.

And from the sounds of it, it’s going to be a whole line of Game of Thrones beers, all specifically brewed rather than being re-bottled versions of Ommegang’s existing brands—another beer this Fall, and two more planned beyond that.

Here’s the press release below:

And the short lists continue to roll out, as the Screen Actors Guild and the Hollywood Foreign Press offer up their nominees for next year’s awards. Following its first season, Game of Thrones picked up up two nominations each at the SAG Awards and the Golden Globes, but this time around, it looks like the second season just didn’t make much of an impression with the nominating bodies. For the SAG Awards, the show did manage to repeat its nomination for Best Stunt Ensemble (which it won last season), but missed out on repeating for Best Drama Ensemble.

As for the Globes, last year saw nominations in Best Drama and Best Supporting Actor for Peter Dinklage (which Dinklage went on to win), but this time the show drew no nominations. It’s shaping up to be a somewhat quieter awards season for the series, although the Emmys will doubtless bring a host of technical nominations, as it has in previous seasons.

There’s quite a variety of wines mentioned in the course of the A Song of Ice and Fire series, most notably the golden wine of the Arbor and Dornish summerwine. Now, over at science blog The Last Word on Nothing, writer Sean Treacy looks into the science behind the wine in a world where seasons are erratic and can last years at a time. It’s a fun read, for those who wonder just how something like that might work in reality.

(Thanks to Ed Plocher for pointing it out.)

Last night, the official Game of Thrones Twitter account reminded us that Emilia Clarke would be appearing on ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live late night show, and as is their wont, the talk show has made the appearance available on Youtube. Listen to Emilia discuss getting quite literally stuck on the toliet while filming a particularly sticky scene, and the time she was punched in Vietnam under rather curious circustmances:

We’ve previously reported on the producers and writers guilds honoring Game of Thrones with nominations for their annual awards, and now it looks like the American Film Institute is joining the party as one of 10 honorees in the AFI TV Programs of the Year award. There’ll be a private luncheon on January 11 honoring the creative ensembles of each of the honorees, so there’ll likely be some interviews and photos from producers and perhaps actors to look forward to from around then.

Other honorees which we ourselves are fans of are (and would recommend) are Mad Men, Breaking Bad, Homeland, and Girls, alongside The Walking Dead, Louie, American Horror Story, and Modern Family.

An interesting new post on the Making Game of Thrones production blog, discussing in detail the techniques used to create a fiery sword that will feature prominently in a scene in the third season. The details are mildly spoilerish, so I’d suggest not going there if you really want to have no idea whatsoever as to why a sword might be on fire in season 3. It’s pretty interesting reading, in any case, if you’re interested in the nitty-gritty of production special effects techniques.

As various bodies begin to announce their award nominations for the 2013 award season, Game of Thrones of course gets some attention, as one would expect from one of HBO‘s tent-pole dramas. Late last month, the Producers Guild of America released its nominations, and Game of Thrones was among them in Drama category. The awards are aimed at acknowledging the producers behind the shows, so specifically it’s the executive producers David Benioff, Bernadette Caulfield, Frank Doelger, Carolyn Strauss, and D.B. Weiss who are up for the award.

And now the Writers Guild of America has followed suit (as we learn from GRRM himself at “Not a Blog” with a Drama nod. The show doesn’t feature in the Episodic Drama category—it’s all Mad Men and Breaking Bad there—but in the more general drama series category.

As has started to become something of a habit for HBO’s Game of Thrones, it gets something like pride of place in their end of season trailers that promote both what came before (such a shame that Luck seemed to deserve only a split second glance of Dustin Hoffman—that was a beautiful show) and also what’s to come. It gives us a handful of new glimpses of season 3 of the show, starting around the midpoint (but beware, some of the content may be considered spoilerish if you’ve not read A Storm of Swords):

A sharp-eyed fan (thanks, Jonas!) stumbled across the fact that Mero of Braavos, called the Titan’s Bastard, has been cast. The role of the notoriously brutal and untrustworthy sellsword captain is to be played by Mark Killeen, according to his CV. He also lists director Michelle McLaren as the director of the episode or episodes he appears in. As we’ve previously reported, MacLaren directed episodes 7 and 8 of the third season.

So, the notable sellswords Daenerys meets in Slaver’s Bay are largely accounted for. Is Brown Ben Plumm also in the cards? We’re pretty sure that if he does appear, it’ll be in the fourth season or even later, but you never really know.

And now, following the featurette,  the ritual of screencapping resumes.  You can find many screenshots featuring the new cast members, and anything else of interest that we could spot (along with our commentary) at the Gallery

Also, now seemed a good time to add in the season 3 characters we’re aware of—either confirmed by HBO or confirmed by sources we trust in sufficient number to seem credible—to our season 3 character listing.

Enjoy!

Here it is, folks, what you’ve been waiting for: the first “In Production” featurette for Game of Thrones season 3!

We’ll be adding screencaps to the Gallery, with commentary, presently!

Straight from HBO, we learn that they’ll be airing a “In Production featurette for season 3 at 8:54 PM Eastern, prior to the finale of Boardwalk Empire. According to HBO:

After it debuts on the air, it should show up shortly after at the usual spots—HBO, Making Game of Thrones, and Youtube.

Particularly interested in seeing Diana Rigg as the Queen of Thorns and Kristofer Hivju as Tormund Giantsbane, for my part.

New cast member Iwan Rheon, whose casting confirmation we reported on awhile back, and whose role (“BOY”) has been the subject of a lot of well-founded speculation, was interviewed by the always-excellent Red Carpet News regarding his experience filming on the show and just who he worked with.

(Watch the interviewer rather cheekily taking a stab at Rheon’s character’s identity with his opening question):

(Thanks to CoolOff on the A Song of Ice and Fire Forum for bringing the interview to our attention.)